MOVIE MUSIC UK

THROWBACK THIRTY

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

The Crow is a dark supernatural action thriller directed by Alex Proyas, based on the comic book of the same name by James O’Barr. The story follows Eric Draven, played by Brandon Lee, a rock musician who is brutally murdered along with his fiancée, Shelly, by a gang of criminals. One year after their deaths, Eric is resurrected by a mystical crow to seek vengeance on those who wronged him. Eric soon discovers he has supernatural abilities and is invulnerable to pain; guided by the crow, he methodically tracks down and eliminates the gang members responsible for his and Shelly’s deaths, until eventually he comes face-to-face with the gang’s vicious leader, Top Dollar. The film co-starred Michael Wincott, Sofia Shinas, and Michael Massee, as well as Ernie Hudson as sympathetic cop Albrecht, and Rochelle Davis as a young girl named Sarah who was close to Eric and Shelly.

Of course, the legacy of The Crow is dominated by the fact that its star Brandon Lee was accidentally shot and killed by his co-star Massee on set during filming when a prop gun malfunctioned. Brandon was the son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, who himself died in tragic circumstances in 1973 during post-production on his film Enter the Dragon. This eerie echo, linking father and son in death, cast a lasting shadow over the film and contributed to the mythos of both it and the Lee family in general; however, despite – or perhaps because of – this tragedy, The Crow became a hit film which left an unexpectedly profound cultural impact.

The film’s gothic aesthetic, characterized by its dark, brooding visuals and a soundtrack featuring prominent alternative rock bands, resonated deeply with the 1990s counterculture, and played a significant role in popularizing the goth subculture in mainstream media, while simultaneously helping to popularize grunge music as a whole, in the wake of albums like Nirvana’s Nevermind, Pearl Jam’s Ten, and Alice in Chains’s Dirt. The Crow soundtrack – which featured selections and covers of songs by important artists such as Joy Division, The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, and Stone Temple Pilots – topped the US Billboard 200 chart, and sold 3.8 million copies in the United States alone. The album also features an original song, “It Can’t Rain All the Time,” which was co-written by singer-songwriter Jane Siberry and composer Graeme Revell, and is performed by Siberry. An orchestral version of “It Can’t Rain All the Time” can be heard in the film multiple times.

As for the score itself, an argument can be made for it being the most important work of Graeme Revell’s career. The New Zealander had a background in what is typically called “world music,” bringing together ideas and sounds from non-Western cultures under the umbrella of a traditional orchestral aesthetic, and he showed this in several his of prior scores including Body of Evidence, Boxing Helena, No Escape, and others. In the album’s liner notes, Revell says he felt that “the opportunity to use all these sound sources in a fantasy setting like The Crow could release them from these confines. I heard them as universals. The key was my love of this music – especially Middle-Eastern – and my respect for it both within and outside of its regional or ethnic context. In the same way Western music had penetrated other cultures, it was clear to me that the inverse was bound to happen.” Revell also says that The Crow is “perhaps my signature work… most gothic, religious or horror/thriller scores now contain most of these elements, including world music, ethnic female and male voices, and industrial percussion.”

As such, the score for The Crow is a distinctive mixture of synthesized, industrial, vocal, non-Western, and Western elements, with everything from tribal drumming to rock guitars, ethnic flutes, children’s choirs, jazz, and bird samples, alongside a traditional 50-piece orchestra orchestrated by Tim Simonec. The synth and industrial samples were created by Revell and his then-assistant Brian Williams, now better known as ambient composer Lustmord, while his featured musical soloists include Kazu Matsui on shakuhachi, Karl Verheyen and Philip Tallman on guitars, and Oscar Breshear performing a notable part for a jazzy muted solo trumpet.

The score’s main theme is an unexpectedly beautiful string elegy that speaks to Eric’s tragic death, and the righteous path of vengeance that he is set upon by the titular bird that resurrects him. The elegy appears prominently towards the end of the opening cue “Birth of the Legend,” and re-occurs with significance later in cues like “Rain Forever,” “Believe in Angels,” and in a slightly deconstructed fashion in “On Hallowed Ground”. Each time the theme appears it adds a level of pathos and emotional depth to the score which is really quite excellent, allowing the audience to connect with Eric and his poignant fate.

That first cue “Birth of the Legend” is also important as it introduces almost all of the score’s main recurring instrumental and textural ideas, including the world music percussion, the ethnic woodwinds, the jazzy muted brass, the wailing wordless voices, and the moody electronic atmospherics. Looking back, I don’t remember hearing this sort of soundscape prior to The Crow, and so with hindsight this is clearly groundbreaking stuff from Revell. Now, everyone uses a duduk as an easy shorthand for a ‘haunting mood,’ but Revell may have been the first to apply it to this sort of squalid, urban setting, at least in mainstream cinema.

In “Resurrection” Revell introduces a new textural idea, Kazu Matsui’s shakuhachi bamboo flute, which appears to act as a sort of leitmotif for the crow itself, and which will surely remind long-time film music aficionados of several James Horner scores which use the same instrument. He combines the shakuhachi with duduk, wailing electric guitars, and brooding orchestral textures to excellent effect, and then in the subsequent “The Crow Descends” the breathy, percussive sound of the shakuhachi helps create an urgent, insistent mood. I especially like the guttural male voices and chain-like percussion sounds in the second half of the cue. Elsewhere, the score’s jazz aesthetic is emphasized significantly in the excellent “Remembrance,” which has an echo of Bernard Herrmann and Taxi Driver in the way that the trumpet performances emphasize an atmosphere of urban decay.

The action and suspense music, which usually underscores the various scenes of Eric exacting violent retribution on the men who murdered him, is prominent in cues like “Her Eyes… So Innocent” and “Tracking the Prey,” among others. This is where the score starts to become quite difficult, as each cue offers a different dissonant mélange of sounds and ideas run through an industrial sound processor to make them seem almost alien. The world music instruments, guitars, and vocals are buried underneath multiple layers of crushing electronic design and sound effects, and although it is certainly effective in context, it is a tough listen for anyone who tends to shy away from these sorts of aural assaults. I should also point out that the “Tracking the Prey” opens with an unexpected performance of “It Can’t Rain All the Time,” taken from an in-context performance by vocalist Chris Snyder.

There’s some unexpectedly angelic vocal work in both “Pain and Retribution” and “Believe in Angels,” again backed by the emotional-sounding duduk and a wash of electronics. “Captive Child” starts out as a showcase for electric guitars before it re-embraces the difficult action and suspense stylistics from earlier in the score. “Devil’s Night” is an interesting exercise in instrumental rock music, built around a dark howling guitar riff and harsh, insistent, driving percussion. This sound then reaches its zenith in the first half of the roaring, abrasive, virtuoso “Inferno”.

The tone of “Return to the Grave” is unexpectedly mellow and appealing; Eric’s vengeance has been carried out, the perpetrators have received their justice, and now he can rest. There is some lovely combo writing for electric guitar and piano here, as well as a beautiful final flourish of the romantic main theme, before the whole thing concludes in “Last Rites” with more angelic vocals, moody duduks, and hypnotic Middle Eastern percussion textures, as well as an odd but effective string effect that appears to be intentionally mimicking the sound of a crow’s flapping wings.

The score for The Crow was released by Varese Sarabande at the time of the film’s release, in a tight 50-minute package that I continue to enjoy today. In 2021 Varese and producers Cary Mansfield and Chas Ferry released a digital-only expanded release of the score which increases its running time to almost 90 minutes, and includes for the first time the “It Can’t Rain All the Time” song separate from the commercial song soundtrack. I recommend it to fans of the film but, honestly, I have always felt that the original release is strong enough for it not to need almost 40 minutes of extra music.

Looking back at The Crow, thirty years later, it’s easy to understand how it became so vital to the zeitgeist of the time. While the individual elements that make up the score – string orchestra, rock guitar, ethnic percussion and woodwinds, ‘world music’ vocals, electronic sound design – had of course all existed before, the way that Graeme Revell brought them together for this score was very new and very innovative; when you combine this with the film’s goth aesthetic, the simultaneous emergence of the grunge sound in rock music, and the impact of Brandon Lee’s death, the cultural influence of the whole package becomes apparent. While it may not be the best in musical terms, and while it is certainly not my personal favorite, The Crow is probably the most important score of Graeme Revell’s career, and deserves attention for that fact alone.

Buy the Crow soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• SCORE ALBUM
• Birth of the Legend (6:16)
• Resurrection (2:10)
• The Crow Descends (2:30)
• Remembrance (2:54)
• Rain Forever (2:32)
• Her Eyes… So Innocent (2:45)
• Tracking the Prey (3:35)
• Pain and Retribution (2:34)
• Believe in Angels (3:31)
• Captive Child (2:32)
• Devil’s Night (2:30)
• On Hallowed Ground (2:42)
• Inferno (5:02)
• Return to the Grave (3:45)
• Last Rites (3:55)

• SOUNDTRACK ALBUM
• Burn (performed by The Cure) (6:39)
• Golgotha Tenement Blues (performed by Machines of Loving Grace) (4:01)
• Big Empty (performed by Stone Temple Pilots) (4:56)
• Dead Souls (performed by Nine Inch Nails) (4:52)
• Darkness (performed by Rage Against the Machine) (3:42)
• Color Me Once (performed by Violent Femmes) (4:10)
• Ghostrider (performed by Rollins Band) (5:46)
• Milktoast (performed by Helmet) (3:59)
• The Badge (performed by Pantera) (3:54)
• Slip Slide Melting (performed by For Love Not Lisa) (5:48)
• After the Flesh (performed by My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult) (3:00)
• Snakedriver (performed by The Jesus and Mary Chain) (3:43)
• Time Baby III (performed by Medicine) (3:52)
• It Can’t Rain All the Time (performed by Jane Siberry) (5:31)

• DELUXE EXPANDED SCORE ALBUM
• Birth of the Legend (6:17)
• Forever (1:29)
• Absolution Accepted (2:26)
• Despair (1:37)
• Resurrection (2:09)
• Never Ever Fear (3:43)
• Inertia (1:48)
• Pain and the Shadows (0:41)
• The Crow Descends (2:31)
• A Cold October Night (1:08)
• Remembrance (2:54)
• Rain Forever (2:32)
• Shattered in the Head (0:44)
• Her Eyes…So Innocent (2:45)
• Tracking the Prey (3:35)
• Elegy (0:32)
• The Tides of Sin (2:07)
• Pain and Retribution (2:34)
• Angels All Fire (1:16)
• Believe in Angels (3:32)
• Respect to The Living (3:25)
• Truth to The Dead (0:55)
• Killing Time (1:24)
• A Vision From Hell (1:52)
• Captive Child (2:32)
• Devil’s Night (2:30)
• Innocent Lovers (2:13)
• On Hallowed Ground (2:42)
• Twisted Wreckage (3:13)
• Inferno (5:03)
• Eyes Like Candy (3:25)
• Irony (1:14)
• Legacy of Brutality (1:49)
• Watching You Forever… (2:27)
• Angel From Hell (4:04)
• Praying for Rain (0:47)
• Return to Grave (3:45)
• Last Rites (3:54)
• Destroy Myself (1:45)
• End Titles: It Can’t Rain All The Time (written by Graeme Revell and Jane Siberry, performed by Jane Siberry) (4:04)

Varèse Sarabande VSD-5499 (1994) – Score Album
Atlantic Records 7567825192 (1994) – Soundtrack Album
Varèse Sarabande (1994/2021) – Expanded Score Album

Running Time: 49 minutes 13 seconds – Score Album
Running Time: 63 minutes 50 seconds – Soundtrack Album
Running Time: 99 minutes 23 seconds – Expanded Score Album

Music composed and conducted by Graeme Revell. Orchestrations by Tim Simonec. Additional music and sound design by Brian Williams. Special vocal performances by Bobbi Page, Chris Snyder, and Darlene Koldenhoven. Recorded and mixed by Dan Wallin. Edited by Dick Bernstein. Score produced by Graeme Revell. Expanded album produced by Cary Mansfield and Chas Ferry.